


came down easy spinning threads to the throne

by pissvinegarandacrowbar



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, High on Prescribed Drugs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Massage, No Drug Abuse, idk you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7313416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissvinegarandacrowbar/pseuds/pissvinegarandacrowbar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red Hood took a bullet for Nightwing. Dick is grateful, he really is. But now he has to deal with a drugged-up Jason Todd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	came down easy spinning threads to the throne

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something not sad, and this trainwreck was what my brain came up with. I'm sorry in advance. This is informed by my experience getting my wisdom teeth out a few years ago, in which I was a high mess who alternated between giggling and crying. As was I, so is Jason Todd.

Jason can’t help but groan as he stirs from sleep when the bed dips beside him. He rolls over tenderly, blinking blearily at the figure next to him. He is grateful when his double-vision clears and he can just make out Dick’s worried frown. If it had been anyone else, he likely wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.

“How are you feeling?” Dick asks lowly. He runs a gentle hand over Jason’s shoulder and Jason grumbles and burrows further under the covers. He’s been laid up for a week and a half after taking a bullet meant for Nightwing, drugged up to the gills to stave off the pain. Getting shot is old news for Jason, but taking a bullet right to the hip is a special hell that he hasn’t experienced before.

“’M fine,” he mutters. His pelvis hadn’t shattered by some miracle, but he’s still incredibly sore practically from the neck down. Alfred believed Jason would be laid up for as long as six months if he didn’t allow himself to heal properly. In all honestly, the bullet was hardly the problem - it was the multitude of soft-tissue injuries and torn muscles that Alfred was most concerned about. His examination of Jason after his injury had turned up a shocking number of old ailments he’d never dealt with. Evidently, it wasn’t normal to limp when it rained and experience constant shooting pain through his upper back and shoulders. _Rich people and their preventative medical treatment_ , Jason decidedly had not commented.

Dick hums softly and presses his fingers more firmly into the back of Jason’s shoulder. He’s probing a little, probably checking for more injuries, but Jason is high and exhausted enough not to say anything. He leans back into the touch instead, simultaneously letting his head droop to Dick’s shoulder. Dick’s pleased noise in the back of his throat totally doesn’t make him smile crookedly.

Maybe it’s the drugs - okay, it’s almost definitely the drugs - but Jason hasn’t been able to get enough of Dick’s touch lately. Before his injury, Jason was sensitive to skin contact, shying away from it even as he, deep down, desperately craved it. Now he’s loopy over it, constantly lying with his head in Dick’s lap and his face pressed to his stomach, practically purring as Dick plays with his hair, or rolling over and shuffling backwards in bed until Dick is forced to spoon him. It’s just _nice_. He can’t ever remember being touched this much in either of his lives, and Dick is so happy to do it. He’s always been touchy-feely, and Jason suspects that he’s internally deeply pleased that Jason is now reacting to his hugs and impromptu neck kisses like an overly-affectionate labrador puppy.

Dick digs his index finger into one of Jason’s countless muscle knots, and Jason can’t help but groan loudly. Alfred had chewed him out for not taking proper care of his back, but what Jason hadn’t told him was that he wasn’t avoiding a visit to a massage therapist because he was stubborn or ignorant. It’s just - hard for him, still, to be shirtless around anyone that isn’t Roy or, most of the time, Dick. In order to ease his muscle pain, a masseuse would have to navigate around bullet holes and stab wounds, a messy collection of scars littered on his body from ankle to neck. Not to mention the stretch marks on his hips and belly from rapidly gaining height and weight back when he was in Talia’s care.

“Do you feel well enough for me to rub your back a little, babe?” Dick asks. Jason wonders half-heartedly whether he’s offering out of genuine care, desire for physical contact, or misplaced guilt. He knows Dick feels truly awful that an attack meant for him hurt Jason so badly, but there hadn’t been even a moment of hesitation or regret on Jason’s part when he had taken that bullet. It was instinctive and seemed obvious, as Jason had told Dick when he woke up, albeit slurred and with some colourful language slipped in.

Knowing Dick Grayson, it’s probably genuine care - and besides, the idea of Dick putting his strong, callused hands all over Jason’s body sounds like heaven. “Hell yeah,” he mumbles into Dick’s neck. Dick laughs a little as Jason flails and squirms, attempting to roll onto his belly. Dick ends up gripping his waist and gently moving him into position, hovering over him on his knees so he doesn’t further agitate Jason’s hip - not that he could feel it. Whatever painkillers Alfred prescribed him are really excellent quality.

Dick starts off gently, warming up Jason’s skin with long presses of his palms. Even _this_ , without any real pressure, feels so soothing that Jason could sob. Just someone touching him like this, not avoiding his scars but skimming over them as if they were any other patch of skin, is making him weirdly emotional. _It’s the drugs_ , he tells himself again, because denial is easy when you’re as high as a kite. Dick plants his hands just below Jason’s shoulder blades and leans forward, letting his weight work the muscles there loose. “Tell me if you need me to stop, okay?” he says in Jason’s ear. His hair is brushing the back of Jason’s neck and his lips are so, so warm. Jason feels what he thinks the poets describe as “ethereal”.

“Mmhmm,” he starts, but the word lifts into a keen as Dick uses the heels of his hands to tease out one of Jason’s countless knots. He loses track of sanity a little as Dick massages him, finding every sore spot and working it until Jason can feel the muscles release. He drifts off, thinking about how _good_  Dick has been to him since the accident - not that he wasn’t before. But every single time Jason has woken up from his drug-induced stupor, Dick has been there, petting his hair. He’s kept the lights low and Jason’s food soft and he’s supported Jason to and from the bathroom without complaint, held him up in the shower even as Jason went boneless at the feeling of the hot water and Dick’s hotter body wrapped around him. Jason hasn’t been an easy patient, either - he gets snippy as hell when his meds wear off, and he’s pretty sure he’s cried almost every single time a fresh dose kicks in. He kind of vaguely remembers Dick muffling his laughter into Jason’s hair as Jason sobbed over how cute the kitten Roy got for Lian is.

Jason comes back into his mind when Dick works up to Jason’s neck. He’s practically always sore from the weight and bulk of his helmet, a pain that Jason has added to the others and basically ignored. Now, though, as Dick rubs there with careful precision, Jason can’t imagine ever living with that ache all the time. “Feelssogood,” he slurs, and Dick laughs a little and digs at a knot at his hairline.

“You should let me do this more often,” Dick comments. Jason thinks he might have had a reason to disagree at some point, but he definitely can’t remember it now. He swats Dick’s hands away and manages to twist so he’s lying on his side again. Dick settles back on the bed, facing him and running his fingers along Jason’s jaw. “Do you feel better?” he asks, and Jason tugs at the front of Dick’s shirt until he scoots forward and presses his lips against Jason’s waiting ones.

“So better,” he says against Dick’s lips. Dick huffs out another laugh, evidently endlessly amused by Jason’s lack of filter, and Jason takes his parted lips as an opportunity to lick into Dick’s mouth. He doesn’t actually think he’s capable of getting hard when his body is this fucked up, but if he were, he so would be. He’s got that low-level, full-body thrumming feeling that only happens when Dick indulges Jason’s praise kink, and it makes him want to do some very specific and impossible things based on his physical state. He presses his stomach into Dick’s anyway and grins loonily when he feels Dick’s erection. Dick always, always gets hard when Jason lets him touch him for more than five minutes. It’s a little bit of a power rush. “You like touchin’ me,” he sing-songs into Dick’s mouth, and Dick has to pull back to laugh uncontrollably. “Wish I could fuck you,” Jason muses as Dick wipes tears from his eyes. “That’d be nice.”

“It would, Little Wing,” Dick agrees with a wry grin. “Too bad you had to go and get shot, huh?”

“Jackass,” Jason mutters. Dick is laughing again, which gives Jason the opportunity to pull him forward and shut him up with a kiss. “You know,” he pulls back and tells him conspiratorially, “we could jus’ kiss while you jack off. Tha’s nice too.” Dick starts to frown, so Jason kisses him some more. He can’t get enough of Dick’s fucking _mouth_. “Is fine, Dickiebird, I won’t even touch ‘cept for kissing, see?”

“Are you sure?” Dick asks. He runs his hand through Jason’s bangs and looks at him worriedly. Consent is very, _very_ important to Dick, so Jason makes sure that his nod is appropriately thorough and convincing. Dick almost looks ready to laugh again, the dork, so Jason bites down on his lower lip the way Dick likes.

“C’mon,” he breathes. Dick sighs and kisses him thoroughly, seemingly just enjoying the way Jason is too out of it to be anything but sloppy, before he finally reaches down to jack himself. He moans into Jason’s mouth at the first touch of his own hand. Jason really really _really_  wishes he could get hard right now.

Instead he giggles when Dick sucks on his tongue, because he’s detached enough from the sensation of it for tongue-sucking to be objectively ridiculous, and the look Dick shoots him ratchets him up right into full-blown hysterics. “What the fuck,” Dick says. He cups Jason’s face with both hands, trying to calm him down enough to find out what, exactly, is so funny, but Jason wrinkles his nose and squirms away.

“Hand was on your penis,” he complains. “Tha’s gross.” Dick stares at him, wordlessly, for what feels like several minutes before he bursts into laughter too.

“You realize you _regularly_  put my penis in your mouth, right?” he asks. Jason frowns. “You always seem to quite enjoy it, too.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Jason says. Dick snorts and tips their foreheads together. “Sounds like you, though.”

“Okay, dummy,” Dick agrees. He kisses the tip of Jason’s nose. “I love you, you high idiot.”

“Love y’too,” Jason mumbles. Sleep, he thinks, sounds like a really super great idea. Maybe when he wakes up he can convince Dick to let him watch Animal Planet again.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me [here](http://pissvinegarandacrowbar.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
